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Monday, June 4, 2012

Spring Cleaning Your Practice

Spring Cleaning Your Practice

Lately we have been doing a lot of cleanup around our home, I guess you could call it a spring cleanup. This takes me back to a time when I was integrating my near-death experience (NDE). Friends and I made a trip to my mentors home in Virginia, but she didn't know we were coming.

Margaret Kean was my NDE mentor and I’d like to share a tidbit of what she showed me. Here is an excerpt from our book Voyage of Purpose where I was speaking about that time.

Margaret lovingly and graciously invited us into her home, though with an odd look. Little did we know at that moment that she had just asked the universe for some help and received instant confirmation from Spirit with us ringing the doorbell.

Margaret headed a healing missionary in Swaziland, Africa. She and her assistant, Libby, spent eight months, or more, of the year bringing medicines and healing to the poor in Africa. Margaret and her husband, Len, had decided to sell the retreat center to allow her more time in Africa. Libby was away drumming up financial support for their upcoming mission work. Hearing all this, William and I immediately offered to help get things ready to sell the property; in exchange Margaret offered guidance, sharing, and her company.

One of the many tasks we tackled was cleaning the stone floor in the front foyer. William and I got down on our hands and knees to scrub it clean. While we were in the process, Margaret walked by and in passing bestowed a gem of wisdom that stays with me to this day: “How you approach cleaning is the very same way you approach your spirituality.”

Some people clean by starting at one end and work systematically and thoroughly. Others have a scattered approach and hit spots here and there. There is no wrong or right way, only the way we choose. Whatever your cleaning style is, it is more than likely it is going to be the same method you approach your spirituality. There is no wrong or right way, it is just your process. Trained as an engineer, I do things systematically. Mindfulness works well with a systematic approach and my cleaning habits reflect that. Margaret’s words not only affirmed my approach to spirituality, it made me realize that you can use cleaning to focus and reflect on your spiritual practice...

From time to time those words return to me, and I reflect on them. Occasionally we should perform a little housecleaning to shake the dust off our practice. For me that is returning to what started me down the road of spirituality, my NDE. For others it may be connecting and experiencing the joy, beauty, creativity, and healing of living on Mother Earth. Whatever it is, return to the root of your practice and revive it so it may again shine in your heart, bringing revived vigor and inspiration.

Use your style to approach and infuse your practice with the original loving intention that created your practice. Clean the glass so to say, and as we are shinning things up the light can clearly illuminate our future path. Again there is no wrong or right way, but make sure to utilize “your” process, to keep it on your path.

Joseph Campbell once said“I have a theory that if you are on your own path things are going to come to you. Since it’s your own path, and no one has ever been on it before, there’s no precedent, so everything that happens is a surprise and is timely.”

Along your path you may find that others may have a parallel path or may intersect yours from time to time. Enjoy their assistance and friendship. Embrace your own path and your own practice; allow it to propel you into a future of positive potentials.

In our spring cleaning we let go of past hurts and pleasantness, because they weigh us down on the journey. We let go and live in wonder of this moment, always looking forward to the next, forever keeping our light clean and bright. The time has come, enjoy your cleaning.